July 8, 2016

O Lord my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.

— Psalm 30:2

 

 

In a country where 80 percent of its citizens struggle to access badly needed health care, Love A Child, along with our partners, is leading a medical crusade in the mountains of Haiti every day. Though we often travel many hours into the regions beyond for our Mobile Medical Clinics, it is our Jesus Healing Center and the Malnutrition Center that are making such a tremendous difference in the lives of thousands of Haitians, many who have walked for hours to reach medical care.

 

Recent events have greatly increased our patient load at our Jesus Healing Center. There is a nationwide strike among medical personnel at all of the government-run hospitals and health clinics throughout Haiti. We are seeing twice as many patients as we normally do, as people are coming all the way from the Port-au-Prince area to receive medical care.

 

Jesus Healing Center

When the Lord laid it upon our hearts to build this medical clinic on the Love A Child property in remote, mountainous Fond Parisien, we quickly realized that we were once again being pushed to take a step of faith…  We completed the Jesus Healing Center in 2008, and it now provides health care for the poorest of the poor throughout the Fond Parisien area and beyond. This is only possible because of our wonderful partners, like Joyce Meyer Ministries – Hand of Hope, that is dedicated to helping those in desperate need.

 

The Jesus Healing Center has grown tremendously, especially in the last year. We treat thousands of patients in Fond Parisien and surrounding areas. Just two years ago, our community clinic treated an average of 2,000 patients each month, now it is over 9,000 each month!

 

We are so thankful to our partners who sponsored the building of our Jesus Healing Center and we are thankful to Joyce Meyer Ministries – Hand of Hope, who sponsors the operating costs each month. This includes paying for medicines, all salaries for the doctors, nurses, and employees and much more. Because of help from Joyce Meyer Ministries – Hand of Hope, we can offer the best possible care to the poorest of the poor. Each morning the staff and patients come together and pray before we start the day. The staff is thanking the Lord for His faithfulness in this blessing of a clinic for the people, these devotions are a sign they will be treated with grace and mercy as they enter our care.

 

Barbara MacMannis is a RN and our Medical Administrator. She leads by faith and the staff and patients of the Jesus Healing Center are so aware of the blessings of this center. It meets the needs of the patients, respects them as people of God, and hopefully shines a light for the love of the Lord in everything we do and say.

 

As word spreads about the excellent care patients receive at the Jesus Healing Center, we find ourselves bursting at the seams. Our four doctors, two residents, and eleven nurses have been able to increase our patient load from 100 to more than 150 a day to keep up with the need, but our problem was where would we put all the added patients.

 

Without the funds to add on to our current building we have looked into our extra spaces for storage, and re-configured to increase our maximum use of the existing building.

 

Although our Jesus Healing Center does not really “deliver babies” as a hospital would, there are many times when a pregnant mom arrives at our gate for her prenatal check-up and has already delivered a baby before the doors can open. This was the case when we were trying to send a pregnant mom to the hospital, before the strike; she just made it as far as our ambulance parked outside the Jesus Healing Center! Mother and child are doing well!

 

Maternity Clinic

At the Jesus Healing Center’s Maternity Clinic, mothers are taught nutrition and supplied with a healthy supplemental feeding. Watching the baby progress from week to week and the ensuing happiness of the mother is such a blessing.

 

 

Malnutrition Center

In our new Malnutrition Center, we educate pregnant mothers on the importance of having healthy babies. We offer classes on prenatal care, early child care, and encourage breast-feeding, which is the best solution for the immune system of a new baby. So many little lives will be saved and so much will be going on in the center to save even more lives.

In 2015 we completed the Malnutrition Center next to the Jesus Healing Center. Malnutrition is the leading cause of death among children five-years-old and under in Haiti, and we knew we could address this issue by educating new and soon-to-be mothers. The staff holds educational classes, and we also have a team of agents that venture out to the regions beyond to treat and educate mothers and children.

 

The Malnutrition Center sees between three and four hundred babies and toddlers weekly. Some have been in our program for many months. Children are checked and weighed each week, and their mothers are taught the best foods to feed them, when there is little available. Each mother receives several types of food for her baby for the next week, and then, each baby comes back to be weighed weekly. This wonderful program has prevented many children from dying of malnutrition. A special thank you to one of our partners, Dor’e Aslandes, who sponsored the new Malnutrition Center.

 

Many children suffer from malnutrition, and as a result, their hair turns red and brittle. Their little bodies either become bloated or emaciated and they often die before the age of five. Such was the case of little Catiana, who passed away before we could bring her to our Malnutrition Center.

 

Malnutrition in Haiti is a complex problem that continues because of the cycle of poverty and other things we cannot control. There are two types of malnutrition that we see here: Kwashiorkor—in which you see swollen bellies and at its worst their limbs and faces also become bloated because they are retaining fluid, and Marasmus—where they are so emaciated that their poor little bodies are nothing but skin and bones. Both types are common among poor families here.

 

These desperate families await the food that Love A Child gives them each week. Their children were found to be severely underweight, so the doctor has assigned them to the Malnutrition Center. Some of them have a two-hour walk home with the sack of food and at least one child to tow. They do this because it may be the only food they will have for the week. Each week we weigh and measure the children to monitor their progress. The Malnutrition Center has already saved many young lives!

 

There is always joy when we see growth, weight gain and overall improvement in the young children in the preventive Malnutrition Program.

Please continue to pray for the struggling children and their families here in Haiti.

The Jesus Healing Center is in desperate need of an AUTOCLAVE.

If you are interested in helping, please call our office at: 239-210-6107 and ask to speak to Mike Essmann.

God bless you and thank you so much for your compassion, on behalf of the poor in Haiti.

Sherry